James Bond Portrait Gallery

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When James Bond makes his return to U.S. cinemas in 2015, he’s going to have company in the form of one of Marvel Comics’ oldest (but not that well known to the general public) characters: Ant Man.

Scientist Henry Pym made his debut in 1962 in a story by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby, in Tales to Astonish No. 27. It was a one-off tale, in which Pym devises a formula that shrinks himself to the size of an ant. He shrinks so fast, he can’t reach the antidote.

Pym eventually ends up in an ant colony. He’s saved by one ant who acts differently than the others. Pym manages to reach his enlarging formula and swears off such formulas.

That is, until issue 35, when Pym returned, this time deciding he should be a superhero and takes on the guise of Ant Man. Eventually, Ant Man ends up as a founder of the Avengers superhero group. He also, in Tales to Astonish No. 49, decided to be Giant Man instead. Still later, Pym took on other superhero guises. Eventually, other characters took on the Ant Man mantle.

It’s easy to imagine the jokes that will soon be cracked on James Bond fan message boards. “Ant Man? Bond will SQUISH him!” Figuratively speaking, that may happen. The character hasn’t gotten a lot of respect to date. Ant Man once was part of a 1970s Saturday Night Live skit, where he was portrayed by Garrett Morris and other superheroes (such as John Belushi’s Hulk) made fun of him.

Then again, Iron Man was once called a second-tier Marvel character until Robert Downey Jr. suited up in 2008’s Iron Man. Ant Man will also be the first Marvel film after The Avengers sequel starring Downey that’s scheduled for May 2015. So Ant Man will probably have a lot of publicity. Still, as far as 007 fans are concerned, Ant Man faces a large task taking on Bond at the box office.